Saw the Stereophile review of the B&W 800 Diamond

KR4 writes: "Thanks for reading but:

I have never reviewed or auditioned the Salon, only the Studio."

Thanks for the correction. My fault. Apparently a mental slip caused by my ownership of the Salon 2s. Also, on a re-read of your review I noticed I have never heard either the 802D or 800D image as well as you describe. Of course, that could be just the quality of the set up process (which dealers often don't take seriously). As I've mentioned in previous posts, I thought I made a mistake with the Revels until I spent hours inching them into the just-right positions in my own room.

Budt says:

"I would say the 802D would score a 6 and the 800 Diamonds a 9"

My question for Bud, is why would you buy a ~$15k speaker that only is a '6'? :-)

Most of the rest of the comments seem to be saying that they are all in all pretty similar speakers, albeit with a couple of minor improvements.

For me, the type of feedback that I was looking for was best captured by Mr_m:

"I listened to the older 802D and the new Diamond version at length, same room, same electronics, same music same levels"

... Anything less than this and it's a "system comparison" and not a "speaker comparison." Audio, as Kal mentions, it's tricky to compare what one is hearing now, to what one heard a long time ago under different circumstances. Audio memory is pretty fickly and easy to be influenced in my experience. Anyway, Mr_m goes on:

"...and the differences at best were minimal. Even the salesperson thought they sounded almost identical. As far as the comparison between the 802D and the 800 Diamond, I would tend to think a 24k speaker system should be an improvement over a 14k loudspeaker."

This is interesting to me, and basically what I am trying to figure out. Based on John Atkinson's notes, I don't think these results would surprise him.

Of course, there are two big possible failings in Mr_m's findings:

1. The system and/or room where he did the A/B test was not of high enough resolution, or otherwise not transparent or capable enough to show the differences between these two similar speakers

2. Mr_m and his dealer don't have enough experience or capability to hear the differences

What I'm looking to uncover are the major, WOW, differences when swapping the 800 Diamond in over the older, smaller 802D.

JA implied the differences are subtle based on his detailed measurements.

Kal - if you don't mind my asking, taking money out of the picture, what more would have the 800 Diamond needed to have brought to the table to make you want to trade in your trusty 802Ds?

My rating of 1-10 is compared to live music. The cost of the speaker is irrelevant and of course it is just "my opinion". I rate the 802D at 6 and 800 Diamond at 9 compared to live music.The 802D sounds veiled and has excessive bass bloat in my opinion( which is why it only scores a 6 for me ).
I did hear the 805 Diamond and thought it was better than the older 802D( imo).

Look at this thread. Might give you something.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?p=535611#post535611